WHAT / WHERE

The Downs Malvern is a small, gently selective, co-ed Prep school for ages 3 to 13, tucked away in a pretty setting on the western side of the Malvern Hills. Founded in 1900 (surprise fact, famed poet W. H Auden once taught here), it offers flexi, weekly and full-boarding. The 200 pupils enjoy a good average class size of 12 to 15 and the school has a Christian ethos.

New in the Head’s hot seat at The Downs is Andy Nuttall, taking over in May 2022 it feels like the school is entering an exciting new chapter with his tenure. The awards have been tumbling in recently, with the school being shortlisted in the Independent Schools of the Year 2023 (winner announced in September, watch this space), and scooping Best Eco Initiative in the Muddy Stilettos Best School Awards 2023. I spotted the winning plaque sitting in pride of place in reception, clearly an accolade The Downs is hugely proud of.

First impressions of the school are unassuming. The approach is via a quiet, suburban street, which opens out onto a cul-de-sac site where the school sits (land and houses have been bought up over time). But whilst it may lack flashy fanfare it’s an attractive, leafy location where you won’t be vying with irate passing traffic every day at drop off.

The Downs has a wholesome feel about it, they believe in allowing children to be children here. If you want a gloriously rural backdrop to lessons this place is perfect, as children who attend the school are surrounded by nature. Sitting in 55 acres on the edge of Colwall on the Worcestershire and Herefordshire border, the school merged with Malvern Prep in 2008 and has strong links with its sister senior school, Malvern College, just a few miles away.

During the visit all of the children I came across were cheerful, smartly turned out, engaged in what they were doing, and full of smiles. Most pupils come from the local area although many boarders come from a wide variety of countries, from Europe and the Far East to Africa.

FACILITIES

The buildings are a mixture of red brick, period style and relatively modern, low rise additions, although not your glitzy, ‘look-at-me’ type of school, they are perfectly functional and the whole place has a nice, homely feel. However, saying that, there is a big refurbishment of the Music School happening this year, which will add oomph-factor to the existing facilities. An attractive Edwardian, timbered main building sits in the centre of the campus and houses admin, dining, reception rooms and some dormitories. It all has a nice compact vibe, which adds to the inclusive atmosphere.

The classrooms are very well-equipped and include a stand-alone Art block with excellent facilities, well-equipped, dedicated science laboratories, a DT department crammed with all manner of tools and machinery for woodwork, 3D modelling, food preparation and more. But a huge bonus of studying at The Downs is that you also get access to all of the rather posh facilities at Malvern College too.

MUSIC / DRAMA / THE ARTS

Music, drama and arts provision is really strong here. In addition to the main multi-tasking arts space – the Memorial Hall – Downs thesps get to use Malvern College’s Rogers Theatre for large-scale productions, an impressive £3 million refurbished venue. Recent shows have included Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, making sure more than 100 children got a moment in the limelight, Mary Poppins Jnr and the impressively high brow Les Mis. I saw numerous photos of past productions proudly lining the walls, it felt like a very inspiring place. Pupils from Years 1 to 6 have weekly drama lessons and recent successes include three pupils being awarded arts scholarships.

The Music School is currently housed in an older building, but it’s about to get a great upgrade with a new state-of-the-art refurbishment. There are currently five teaching rooms, fully equipped with an acoustic and an electric piano, eight keyboards, and a large selection of percussion instruments. I noticed that arts don’t stop when the school bell goes either, there are lots of extra-curricular activities to help pupils find a musical passion, including Junior and Senior Choirs, The Cantabile (for more advanced singers), and Orchestra. The school also boasts its own Jazz band and Rock Band.

Pupils enjoy regular success in both ABRSM and Trinity Music exams but teachers here believe strongly that music shouldn’t be elitist. Everyone is encouraged to have a go, so if your child is more the background triangle-tapping type, don’t worry, they’ll be fully embraced.

The art department, featuring lovely wide views to the north and west, was particularly impressive, and the teachers buzzy and enthusiastic. Work displayed there was one of the highest standard I’ve seen at any prep. I was also impressed by the quality of the school’s art collection by pupils, dotted colourfully around the campus.

SPORT

There’s a lot here to keep mini Russos or Murrays busy at The Downs, sporty types will be in their element here. The offering includes a good-sized sports hall with basketball, netball, and retractable cricket nets, outdoor tennis courts, an all-weather Astroturf pitch for football, hockey, and tennis and three large games fields for rugby and athletics.

Add to this the weekly use of Malvern College’s impressive 25-metre indoor swimming pool, and you have a lot of high quality sports facilities to tap into. Plus, co-curricular clubs and regular matches give all pupils the chance to experience the character-forming rollercoaster of winning and losing.

The U13 girls’ hockey team are regional champions, coming third in the country in the 2023 IAPS Championship, and pupils achieved excellent results in Cross Country Running in recent National Prep School Championships. I also liked that girls’ cricket is a big thing here and girls are heavily encouraged to get involved (it’s very popular pupils tell me).

ACADEMICS

High academic outcomes for a gently selective school. Forty per cent of recent Year 8 leavers gained scholarships at a range of high-quality senior schools, and The Downs offers 11+ Scholarships and Exhibitions in five areas: Academic, Art, Drama, Music, and Sport. A limited number of means-tested bursaries are also available on a case-by-case basis.

With such close ties, it’s no wonder the majority of leavers go on to join sister school Malvern College, but pupils also head off to other high-flying schools such as Rugby, Cheltenham, Repton and Marlborough.

The academic workload here seems average for most comparable preps. There’s no formal prep for Years 3 and 4 but three supervised preps a week from Year 5; and two 30-minute preps every night in Years 6, 7 and 8.

Saturday mornings are taken up with the Hobbies programme, ranging from mountain biking and robotics to farming, horse riding and art, plus all the usual Prep school sports. French is taught from Early Years, with a second compulsory choice of German or Spanish from Year 7, when Latin is also introduced.

All the classrooms I peeked into had pupils looking really attentive and vying to answer questions with engaging teachers, and I challenge anyone to tell me that a science department where the teacher wears a rainbow-coloured lab coat isn’t the GOAT.

WHAT ELSE?

The school has really worked on its eco offering since Andy took over, and the school goes out of its way to educate children about the planet around them in a playful way, so if you want your child to grow up really ecological mindful, this place ticks the box.

In addition to earning an Eco-Schools Green Flag Award earlier this year, The Downs stormed one of the most covetable and fiercely fought categories in the Muddy Stilettos Best Schools Awards 2023, winning Best Eco Initiative.

Over the past 12 months, Andy and his team have introduced exciting new initiatives; many of which have been pupil-led, such as Earth Awareness Week.

Other eco-cool introductions include developing the natural landscape around the site, refining the existing Outdoor Adventure area, and introducing a small holding and setting up a sustainable Market Garden which includes a poly tunnel, raised beds and fruit cages – impressive stuff.

The school is quite the farmyard! It is currently home and hutch to 12 heritage breed chickens, 20 quail, six guineafowl, 15 sheep and two heritage pigs, which are used to teach pupils about animal welfare and where the food they eat comes from. There are plans to add geese and guinea fowl to the menagerie too.

In addition, there is a Saturday morning farming hobby for kids to get stuck into, which teaches them about sustainability and animal responsibility. Eco-awareness feels like it is embedded very authentically into the curriculum at The Downs.

Head Andy Nuttall made use of his carpentry skills to create a small kiosk to sell the eggs produced by the chickens and quail.

If you love a parents Whats App group, you’ll love The Downs. This year the Friends of The Downs parents’ association fundraised enough money to pay for a natural wooden play area and den building frames on Brock Meadow – a lovely open area where the kids were running around enjoying themselves with shrieks of laughter. They’ve also bought picnic benches and two outdoor table tennis tables in the Quad which are in constant use during break times.

THE HEAD

Head Andy Nuttall took over in May 2022 and brings with him a wealth of teaching experience. Formerly Deputy Head of Windlesham House School in Sussex and a teacher at Cheam School, he spent four fascinating years at The Banda School in Nairobi, with one of his greatest personal achievement running the North Kenya Marathon, no less.

With a degree in zoology he brings a zeal for natural history and the sciences to The Downs, and a global mindset, which for a quintessentially semi-rural school is clearly a bonus.

Warm, engaging, and with an upbeat energy about him, whilst being proud of the school’s history and reputation, he is excited to be taking The Downs into its next chapter. Fully invested in The Downs personally too, he lives on site with his family, his own children going to school here, and wife Polly (a teacher by trade) is the school’s community engagement officer. Equally effervescent and warm, they send birthday cards to every single child throughout the year, a little reflection of how family-orientated the school tries to be.

Having put in place a strengthened leadership team since arriving, he is also laser focused on building further the pastoral side of the school, whilst maintaining the excellent academic reputation. A big believer in fostering a can-do attitude in kids underpinned by resilience, the new eco-loving ethos at the school clearly comes from him, bringing the chickens and quails concept with him from Windlesham. Other new things for 2023 he’s brought in include Lego Coding and Robotics to a new Hobbies programme and the introduction of a new Downs Baccalaureate to further enhance the academic provision for Years 7 and 8.

LITTLIES

The Prep and the Pre-Prep are on separate sides of the quiet road, but this gives them each their own identity, and they share all the school’s facilities. The Pre-Prep is a colourful, safe and secure feeling place with all the usual accoutrements of this age – from a sandpit and big outdoor space, to a cool looking slide and all the arts and crafts you could desire.

There’s a distinct approach to teaching here that gives children ownership of their learning, with an emphasis on it feeling motivational and encouraging a passion for further knowledge. Children are encouraged to be independent thinkers with higher level questioning and an ability to learn from mistakes.

Outdoor play is really championed, with loads of variety; from woodland and orchards to meadows and the Malvern Hills. The amazingly lush land around The Downs is evidently well-used, with a great Forest School here, and judging from the number of tiny raincoats and wellies I spotted. The youngest children learn about nature and build dens, whilst older pupils explore bushcraft and use the many trails for Cross-Country running. Key Stage 1 classrooms are situated in the same building as Early Years, helping to prepare the children for a smooth transition to the Pre-Prep.

The children all seemed very proud of achieving their various Junior Duke
awards and Proud Penguin certificates. Learning also feels very interactive here. Early Years were visited recently by a host of ‘People Who Help Us’, including a firefighter, police officer, vet, Royal Marine, builder and HGV driving instructor. And, after a recent visit to Eastnor Castle, pupils requested a dress-up morning, and subsequently got treated to a day of princes, princesses, dragons and knights!

BOARDING

There are currently 22 full-time boarders at the school, but including flexi-boarders the total is closer to 50, starting at age seven. The House is run by Houseparents Sarah and John Warlow (see them in action here), and helpfully they are also teachers as well as tutors which means they have to chance to get to know the children well. The ‘Warren’ is situated behind the main building and feels very much like a home-from-home. Dorms have between four and eight beds, and children share a dorm with peers of a similar age.

The recently refurbished common room looks so much fun, it has an air hockey table, pool table, pool, table football, two TVs, six computers, a large kitchen, tables and chairs for craft and board games and lots of sofas for lounging.

The girls’ rooms are an array of vibrant colours with thick, cosy carpets. Boys’ rooms are, as usual, less-decorated but still very comfortable. Boarders here get to make full use of the grounds and school facilities during the evenings and weekends and activities include games in the sports hall, free time on the adventure playground, apple picking in the orchard, cricket and football on Brock meadow, tennis and picnics on the Malvern Hills.

Flexi-boarders can stay one, two or three nights, or on an ad hoc basis. Weekends are busy with off-site activities, which in the past have included trips to Bristol Zoo and Giffords Circus, shopping in Worcester, zorbing or dry slope skiing and pupils seem to value the sense of freedom they get in the evenings with free downtime to go outside or make contact with home.

The sense of community is very strong in the Boarding House and the Warlows put a big emphasis on fostering kindness and consideration towards others.

PASTORAL CARE

Very good. Wellbeing is supported through the tutor system, and weekly staff and pupil discussions constantly review pupil needs. Those identified as needing extra support have access to in-house interventions such as emotional regulation, anger management and self-esteem support. In addition, children can access a Wellbeing Room in the school. There is also a ‘buddy system’ in place which helps any new pupils adjust quickly and easily, so don’t worry about fitting in if you’re a newbie here.

A feeling of togetherness permeates the school, from shared activities in the boarding house to the family-style dining at lunchtime where children chat across cohorts, served at the table by a Year 8 monitor. Houses are also another community to which every child belongs, and house points are gathered through merits and stars.

I can’t help feeling that everyone gets a slice of attention at The Downs, not just the ones who shout loudest for it. It’s something Andy reiterates, being a big believer he tells me in not letting any pupil ‘slip through the cracks’.

There’s a core tenet here to give children a voice, reflected in the various student bodies, from the Eco Team to School Council, and there is an anonymous Suggestions Box for popping in any ideas. Recent requests have included a new play area on Brock Meadow (and having mushrooms removed from the lunch menu – some things never change!).

SEND PROVISION

There are currently 56 SEND pupils and children get one-to-one support with vocabulary, grammar and linguistic structures alongside preparation for language needed in lessons. Most pupils have between two and four lessons per week depending on their specific needs.

WRAPAROUND CARE

There are plenty of options to help parents juggle the daily struggle here. From flexi-boarding, breakfast club and an after-school activities programme during weekdays to the Saturday morning Hobbies programme.

Children join the boarders for breakfast at 07:15 and stay on for supper if parents are working late or delayed on occasion, otherwise standard wrap around care finishes at 6pm. Children in Pre-Prep (which is nursery to Year 2) finish their day at 3.50pm, do a half-hour activity of anything from yoga to German to Lego play, have sandwiches at 5pm and then stay on to 6pm. Although the school emphasises that they can cater for whatever a parent might need.

There’s no formal Saturday school – instead, children from Year 3 to 8 participate in the school’s Hobbies Programme. Pupils can take up everything from pottery to gardening, coding, fencing, badminton, cross-country, mountain biking, rackets and much more.

TRANSPORT

There are six morning bus routes and three after-school routes using a fleet of modern minibuses. Buses travel to the more remote catchment areas, passing and collecting from local pick-up destinations around the surrounding counties.

In addition, the village has its own train station (Colwall) with regular, direct trains to many destinations including London.

TECH / MOBILE PHONES

IT and Technology are well catered for in the curriculum, and parents are kept in the loop so you won’t feel left behind – like we so often do – as there are parental workshops put on frequently to show how IT, coding and Pre-Prep maths are taught at the school just for starters. There is a full suite of computers, Year 7 and 8 pupils have their own devices with homework set on Microsoft Teams, but everyone else gets to use school iPads and laptops.

In terms of mobiles, day pupils are not permitted to have mobile phones during the school day but boarders can have access to their mobile devices during periods of free time during the evenings.

QUIRKS

This could be the best quirk we’ve ever seen in a school! The Downs has the oldest private miniature railway in the world. Toot toot. The Downs Light Railway was built in 1925 and it is wonderfully bonkers and charming. How many children can say they’ve driven a steam train before the age of 10? The line runs around the playing fields for quarter of a mile and pupils learn how to operate it, help with repairs (the perfect way to get first-hand engineering experience), work on the track and even build carriages (which led to a D&T scholarship to Bloxham for one pupil).

FEES

Good to average. Day pupils (from): Reception: £2,795, Year 1: £3,450, Year 2: £3,780, Year 3: £4,770, Year 4: £5,595, Year 5: £6,090, Year 6: £6,290, Years 7 to 8: £6,720. Boarders fees, per term, start from Pre-Prep at £5,760, rising to £8,900 for Years 7 to 8.

If you’re an armed forces family there are discounts, and helpfully, there are School Fee Payment Plans available to everyone to help spread costs throughout the year.

ISI REPORT

The Downs was rated ‘Excellent’ in the most recent 2018 report. Read it here.

WORD ON THE GROUND

Excellent feedback from parents, who delight in happy, motivated kids. The mix of small classes, academic excellence and a strong family feel at The Downs strikes the sweet spot for many. Parents and pupils seem to like the excellent extra-curricular offering here, and there’s a lot of love for the school’s emphasis on teaching kindness and respect for others.

MUDDY VERDICT

GOOD FOR: A school that balances intellectual firepower with a big slice of kindness and community, expect a first class prep education in a caring setting. Perfect if you value planet-loving, eco-awareness, you’ll get an outstanding eco-upbringing here. Spot on for gentle souls who want somewhere that will always make them feel included and valued.

NOT FOR: The pretty setting may be a tad rural for anyone wanting a metro-fabulous backdrop. If you don’t prescribe to a dynamic, eco-loving ethos and innovative teaching, The Downs may not be top of the list for any ultra-traditionalists.

Dare to disagree? Don’t just take my word for it, go see for yourself at the Open Day on Saturday 14 October. Can’t make the date? Get in touch with Registrar, Mrs Katherine Cox, for a private tour around the school.

The Downs Malvern, Brockhill Road, Colwall, Malvern WR13 6EY, Tel: 01684 544104.

Review: The Downs Malvern, Malvern

You may also like